7535/They Never Got to the Oreos.

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They Never Got to the Oreos.
Date of Scene: 25 August 2021
Location: Hell's Kitchen Rooftops
Synopsis: Was it fate or happenstance? Nicolai, on the run from something sinister, crosses paths with Phoebe again, the only person that could possibly save him.
Cast of Characters: Phoebe Beacon, Nicolai Codona




Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The rooftop above the Laughing Magician has been Phoebe's place of pausing for the evening. She found she didn't want to go for a run to clear her head. She didn't want to walk down the way to See Yew Soon or grab a pizza. She wasn't hungry -- and for a teenage girl who burned calories like crazy, that was probably not a great thing. She was sitting out, on a blanket, looking up at the light-pollution destroyed sky of New York City. Beside her, a black glass bowl with silver constellations etched on it was full of rain water from the last storm. A little censor was burning something almost floral in nature, sweet.

    She was asking an awful lot of questions and an awful lot of favors, but not getting very many answers.

    She stole one of the couch pillows to lay against. Sorry, Chas.

Nicolai Codona has posed:
He doesn't even stop, Nicolai doesn't even notice Phoebe on the roof as he runs across it, it isn't until he leaps to the next, using a glowing staff to vault the distance, that he goes down, staggered forward to hands and knees only to shove himself up again.

Will she even recognize him? Pale, the pallor of death, hair white-gray where those dark curls once were, eyes glowing red instead of the almost pretty shade of aqua blue? His staff, now a serpent like whip, glowing the same soft glow as his blood, might be a giveaway, or maybe his voice when he screams, frustrated, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

He lashes out with that whip with a quick, forceful flick of his wrist.

There's nothing there, not that Phoebe can see anyway. It's just Nicolai, if she recognizes him. ...but something knocks him off his feet again and about ten feet back, nearly toppling him off the roof.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    You get to know the weird ones in her general line of work.

    Phoebe hears the footsteps and sits up, her eyes going wide, almost catching her heart in her throat --

    -- she knows his voice. She knows his face, and she gives a gasp as she calls out "Nicolai!" to him. She's bare foot, wearing comfortable yoga pants and a thin shirt against the cool of the night, but she illuminates the area, gripping a spark of her light and then holding it up to show it was her.

    Magic was about projecting your will, right? And she's damn stubborn. "I use my light to illuminate the dark!" she states -- well, worth a shot. She's seen crazier things work.

Nicolai Codona has posed:
The first spark, the tiny one held up, is *just* enough to cause the faintest of shadows to be seen, stalking Nicolai, vicious and lightning fast as he crab crawls back away from the thing until he's run out of roof to back away on. That whip, gone while he needed both hands on the ground, appears again when he lifts his right hand. It straightens, hardens. It definitely takes skill, what happens next. He uses his left hand to spring up into a crouch even as that staff swings around toward the shadow hovering above him. He follows all the way through, spinning on the ball of his right foot. For a second, the shadow blinks away.

He shoves himself up and makes a run for it. He doesn't call back to Phoebe, he doesn't have the breath too. Almost there, almost to the opposite side of the roof, so close.

It appears behind him again. It strikes from behind, a shadowy, clawed hand bursts through the *front* of Nicolai's chest. It's then in that moment, one that's like to not seems frozen in time, that Phoebe's magic works - the night sky lights up around Nicolai and his attacker like the noon day sun has just risen.

That thing, that horrible thing, twisted and gnarled, bones and rotted flesh, a grinning skull, maggots crawling from its eye sockets, clothing in tatters. For just a moment she sees it and then, it's gone with a howl of rage, driven away by that light before it could rip that hand back out and possible his spine or worse with it.

Nicolai slumps to his knees and then just falls.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe was blank for a moment.

    "Oh, it worked!" she states with mild surprise -- the area lit up like a flashbulb -- and she gets a look at the thing. That horrible thing, gnarled and tortured with its mawk-torn body and its clothes destroyed. Phoebe watches as it flees.

    And the Nicolai slumps. She leaps agilely over the span after him, coming to his side, skidding on the rooftop.

    "Nicolai? Nix?" she asks, reaching for him, her hands curling to grasp at his shoulders.

Nicolai Codona has posed:
Blood, everywhere, such that it is - all softly glowing and green. It's spilling out around him, oozing from the corner of his mouth. Whatever that was, it may have been half *here* and half there, but so is Nicolai, every day of his life.

The damage done is very much *here*.

He tries to speak, it's nothing but a gurgling sound.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "No, no no no, I'm not... I'm not losing anyone else this week." Phoebe whispers, and she pulls Nicolai up. He gurgles, the softly, glowing green ectoplasm around them as she pulls him up, and wraps her arms around him. Bodily, the skin of her arms pressing to his arms, her hands holding against her back as she focuses her powers.

    Heal the wounds.
        Purge any poison.
            Eliminate the darkness.

    Fix it, Phoebe!

    And she pushes herself to heal it faster, more completely.

Nicolai Codona has posed:
Like before, with that little cut on his finger... it doesn't take as much effort as it rightly should. Especially given the horrific damage done. Nicolai's wounds begin to heal, flesh and even the bone of his rib cage begin to knit back together, other injuries - hits taken before he made it this far - vanish as well.

By the time it's over, he's just Nicolai in her arms, with those thick messy, dark curls. He's still for a moment or two before his eyes snap open to reveal those odd eyes; back to their normal aqua blue. He sucks in a gasp of a breath and then one more.

Alive and breathing because she was there.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    She forgot how easy it was to heal Nix, but the extend of his injuries was so much more than just a lancet prick.

    And as he snaps his eyes open, she gives a gasp and nearly *drops* the poor guy, instead grasping him by the shoulders and whispering "Are you alive?!"

    Nevermind that she's barefoot, in pajama pants, wearing a tank top. Those dark eyes are focused on his blue.

Nicolai Codona has posed:
"I think so..." Nicolai whispers back, almost as if he's not certain. He's pretty sure he he should be dead. But then he's scrambling away and trying to get to his feet. Not because he's repulsed by her or anything of the sort. No, the reason for his actions are immediately apparent when he asks, "Where is it? Is it gone?"

He stands over top Phoebe, his stance a protective one. She might notice the glint of a little metal tip to his right thumb, extended from a ring worn about half way down. Ornate, so very sharp. But he doesn't use it, not yet. It's poised, ready to lay open his palm so he can bring that whip back to bear if need be.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I think I scared it off." Phoebe replies, drawing to her knees as she takes a deep breath to steady herself, and then she hops up.

    "Is that... something from the thinning veil?" she asks, almost hesitantly, before she looks him up and down, and she looks to the blade.

    And she purses her lips. She narrows her eyes, and then she raises them to Nix's face.

    "That was... the second most horrible thing I've seen all week."

Nicolai Codona has posed:
Nicolai doesn't relax immediately, still wary, still on guard, still with that little blade ready. Who can blame him after that? He shakes his head and reaches up with his other hand to run it back through those curls, all sweaty gross, they stick up this way and that when he's done. "No, it's not that. They usually can't... not on this side... they threaten but they..."

Little discombobulated there, but he's trying to pull it together.

"They usually can't hurt me, not like that..." he finally gets it all out in one complete thought. "Things are all wrong over there, there's... it's like the rules are gone. I don't know how long I was running from it. I don't even know how I got *here*."

Maybe because something knew this was where he needed to be in order to survive?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "What /was/ that?" Phoebe asks, and she motions back to the Laughing Magician. If it comes back, they can swing in her window. It's warded six ways from Sunday, after all, and Nicolai may be able to recover there better.

    "... traveling a leyline?" she offers as an explaination. "C'mon, I was just... doing some thinking." she gives a wan smile. "I have oreos?"

Nicolai Codona has posed:
"Different things to different people," Nicolai begins, his thumb finally moving away a little, that little blade not pressed right up against his palm. "... some call them wraiths. Evil things, usually they're someone that did really bad things in life. Like the Dahmers of the world. I don't usually even *see* them, they're not usually..."

It's hard for him to put this stuff into words that someone that doesn't live it can understand, so it takes him a second or three to get there.

"...It's, there's this right?" He makes a broad gesture to indicate the *this* of it, the here of it. "...then there's a veil, a curtain that's between this and that. That veil, it's not really there for me. But then there's other curtains, other veils, each one gets a little thicker for me until even I can't see them. Those things are... like normally two or three curtains away."

He's rambling truth be told, nervous, anxious, *scared*. Not the usual calm, collected, 'set it down' dude he normally presents for sure.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "So something that exists beyond the Veil, that's even further than the Veil we know... that... is horrofying. Not going to lie." she states gently, leading Nicolai back to the other rooftop. Even accross the alleyway by carefully hopping onto the the covered fire escape from one building, to the next fire escape, to the Laughing Magician's rooftop, where her incense was still burning, flower-sweet, and she had that black bowl of water.

    And she gently tries to guide Nicolai down. She understands.

    She can't see it, normally, but she understands.

    "So do you think it's everything that's messed up the Astral lately that's caused these Wraiths to come out?" she asks, and she reaches into her ever-present bag. She pulls out a candle and a lighter, and lights a plain, white candle for light.

Nicolai Codona has posed:
Roof to roof, even in the state he's in, isn't difficult. It's clear that he does that *a lot*. By the time he settles, legs outstretched, feet crossed at the ankles, hands palms flat behind him to hold him up. He seems calmer. It was likely the threat of that thing coming back that had him rattled more than anything else. The threat seems to be fading, for now anyway.

He glances down at his ruined, torn shirt, the ectoplasm staining it no longer glowing so much, it'll fade out completely in the next few minutes to just leave dark green behind. "I would have died," he states simply. "Even if I'd been somewhere where people could have gotten me to a hospital, I would have died tonight Phoebe. There's nothing they can do for me in a hospital with injuries like that."

He pauses to turn and look at her. "I guess that means you're not so dangerous to be around as you thing, huh?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe is quiet for a moment.

    "Sometimes I'm in the right place at the right time." she states, turning over the lighter -- plain back bic. "Sometimes I'm not." she adds, and tosses the lighter back in her bag as she takes a deep breath, and looks up at the light pollution.

    "You got lucky this time that you ran by me. That I was out here. I suppose someone's smiling on you tonight." she states, turning back to the Transylvanian boy with those dark curls and blue eyes.

    "Your eyes were red." she observes. "Do they often change colors?"

Nicolai Codona has posed:
"I don't much believe in plain luck," Nicolai responds before he turns his gaze up to the sky. "Only when I... use my gifts, powers... whatever you want to call them. Sorry you had to see that. It's not exactly my best look."

"I don't see the stars or the moon," he comments absently. "Never have. I just see the other side up there. Used to be comforting. Now it's just, it looks like someone dropped a nuclear bomb and what's left is the irradiated remains."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I used to not beleive in luck either. Then I met some very lucky people." Phoebe gives a wry sound, and she looks over at Nicolai, and then looks up the orange sky.

    "You can't see the stars in New York City. Or in Gotham, for that matter. It's just a blank canvas of orange light pollusion, or orange light polution and search lights bouncing off clouds. I don't... really know what they look like... but I see the Moon." she gives a slight smile.

    "The moon is a pale white disc some nights, slivers and Cheshire cat smiles others, and sometimes it hides its face behind a sheer veil of clouds, halo'd and mysterious." She smiles, looking over to him.

    "And other times it's as red as blood when it passes into the Earth's umbra, dangling in space like a child's mobile over a cradle. Other times it's blue and sad and full, all at once."

Nicolai Codona has posed:
"I've seen pictures, seen them all on television, on movie screens. Just never the real things. I don't miss it because I've never *known* it, but I miss what's supposed to be there for me. From way up there, the ones that aren't dark and terrifying, the ones that have chosen to stick around just long enough to see that a loved one's all right, or the ones that have chosen to stick around to watch over a loved one; the relatively happy ones? They look like fireflies flitting about."

Nicolai looks down, out over the city now. "Those... they're all gone now."

He forces out a little laugh along with. "Shit, I'm sorry. You don't need to hear all this. What has you up on a rooftop in Hell's Kitchen this late at night anyway?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... I was hoping to see that a loved one was all right. For some sort of... sign, I guess." Phoebe replies quietly, and she looks at her hands, and she breathes out.

    "So, those fireflies that you see some times. Do they... are they the newly departed? Or... do people come back to check on their loved ones?" she questions quietly.

Nicolai Codona has posed:
"Sometimes they just *stay* and sometimes they're okay doing that. Other times they're driven to a sort of madness by it, being so near their loved ones but not being able to actually interact with them. Those are the saddest ones to me. The ones that can't let go despite their own suffering. I guess the ones that chose to stay and can be okay with it, they might be... what people call guardian angels?" Nicolai offers a little shrug, uncertain, even he doesn't have all the answers.

"My father stayed for a bit, after he was killed. He stayed until I found his killer. He never said a word to me. I thought... he wanted justice. It was right before he moved on that he finally spoke, told me he just wanted to see me safe and felt I wouldn't be until Andrei was dealt with. So sometimes they stay just long enough, I guess."

He looks down at his own hands, fiddles with that odd sharpened little finger claw. "It was rough though, had to start missing him all over again."

Still fiddling with that thing he asks, "What happened that makes you think they're not?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe takes a deep breath, and she looks down at her hands. She frowns a moment, and then brings one hand up to rub at her eyes. She felt so tired.

    "They never came home." she states gently. "He went into a situation where he knew he had to find something and save everyone else, and he never came home." she states, quietly and guarded. "Because that's always what happens. You find someone who runs to the danger, someone willing to push boundaries and do what it takes to save as many people as possible. Everyone thinks they're nuts for running into danger, time after time, because they could stop."

    Phoebe closes her eyes.

    "... but we don't stop. Because we know there's a right, and a wrong, and you always try to be on the right side. Even when it hurts."

    And she then turns to Nix, and motions to his ring.

    "Do you at least sanitize it between uses? ... do... you even need to?"

Nicolai Codona has posed:
"Maybe he'll be back when he finds what he was looking for then?" Nicolai suggests just as gently, quietly, but with more than a little conviction despite it being phrased as a question.

"There's really not any other way to run, is there? I know what it's like to lose someone to that though. There was a bombing at a mutant clinic in Bucharest. He was on shift, working... a nurse. I got there just in time to see him running back into the building to try to get more people out. Fires hit the gas lines, leveled the entire building. I was angry at him for a long time. ... but it's the same thing I'd have done if I'd been there two minutes sooner."

Great, he's *gay*.

"I've lost people to that too, me running toward it. She left because she couldn't handle it, not knowing if I was going to come home at night or not."

So maybe he's not?

"Either way sucks, losing people... sucks." His smile's a little sad, wistful maybe. "...but I know it's not *all* bad for them after, especially if they were good, decent people. Makes it a little easier when you lose them to the running toward. I don't have an answer for the because of the running toward though, that just sucks outright."

He stops fiddling and looks up. "I mean, I clean it daily. Never thought much about it. I'm some sort of masochist though. It's how... it's what that... my whip, it's ectoplasm that I control. I have to bleed for it."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe breathes out, and though she tried to blink away the tears that were shining in her eyes, she curls her fingers up.

    "I don't know." she replies softly, and then she breathes out as she listens to Nicolai speak, and then she breathes out in a huff. Him being gay? She didn't worry about it. Not her wheelhouse. She only wanted people to be happy.

    She turned her attention to him in contemplation, and she breathes out in a huff again, reaching upt to pull some of those thin braids behind her ear.

    "My dad once told me that if you run towards the danger, you're broken, but it's the best kind of broken. Because at some point, everyone will need a hero. Even if you're just a little bit of a hero." she gives a smile to Nicolai, and she gives a nod.

    "Yeah. I used to push myself to exhaustion learning how to control my powers... or fight... or, you know, anything. Studying. Trying to fix my motorcyle. Making cupcakes."

Nicolai Codona has posed:
Nicolai opens his right hand, palm up and rubs at the scars there with his left thumb. "It's not really a pushing, it's about having a handy weapon anytime I need it," he replies before pushing himself to his feet, more just standing up really. He doesn't use his hands.

"Not that I don't push or never have. I speak like every Latin based language known to man fluently along with a few Mandarin dialects. I play the guitar, the piano, the violin, the flute, the saxophone... I might be missing a few. I don't obsess at all over new hobbies."

He cracks a crooked little grin and offers a hand to help her up. "I should go, gotta open Hope House in the morning, my receptionist is off but first you deserve a proper hug. You saved my life." It's not just something he's saying either, it's the truth of it. One hundred percent the truth of it.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe allows the hand up, and she blinks a moment. In the flickering candle light her cheeks darken and she rubs the back of her neck.

    "Oh... uh... no I don't do hugs. Not really. On account of on occasion the releasing of serotonin and dopamine can interfere with control over the power and really I don't come from a particularly hug-y family..." she trails off her usual excuses, and takes a small step back, but gives a small smile.

    "BUt, ah, look. I come up here sometimes at night to just be out of the house. I kinda live right below your feet. so if you see me here..." she raises her eyebrows, and looks up to him. "Stop and say hi?"

Nicolai Codona has posed:
"All right, no hugs," Nicolai agrees easily enough. But, if he's not stopped, he will lean in to place a kiss to each of her cheeks. That's just a European thing! "You should stop by Hope House when things get all sorted here at home. "Hang out. Let me kick your ass at air hockey or something."

He pulls his cell phone from his pocket and asks, "Digits? So I can let you know I made it back. Figure you're the worrying sort."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Nope! Phoebe ducks additional physical affection with surprising deftness, and holds up a hand -- and cracks a little smile.

    "Not there yet." she states, and she shakes her head, and goes to grab one of her cards from her bag. She's almost out.

    The #GothamHope has been scratched out, but the phone number was still there.

    "Let me know when you get back in. Warning, though, I'm a night owl and you're probably going to get nerd memes at 3AM or something."

Nicolai Codona has posed:
"Didn't mean anything by it," Nicolai assures with a big old grin, dimples and all. "It's just a thing. We do... us people not from the US that aren't afraid of touching."

A wink when he takes the card. ... and then punches her lightly on the shoulder. That work?

"See you around, Phoebe."

Back the way he came and with nothing chasing him and nipping at his heels, his free-running skills are definitely on point. He's vanished in a split, from one rooftop to the next until he's swallowed by the night.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    And Phoebe sits there a moment longer, having allowed the punch at the shoulder, and she watches him go.

    And she takes a deep breath and lets out a little sigh as she watches him leave... and then gets a startled expression and looks down and around her.

    "Chas is going to have kittens if he thinks I disappeared--" she mumbles, and she licks her finger and thumb to douse the candle, drinks the water exposed to the moon in the black bowl, and goes to gather up all her materials so that the world's best cabbie and barkeep doesn't have to worry about his roommate.